Walking a different path
by z3ro-91
Summary: Harry's waiting for an old friend, who brings him something that he has beseeched for a long time.


Ok folks. I'm a first-timer...well not really. You see I kind of got another account here on FF(dot)net but after all this time I'm kinda unable to use it. OkamiNoKage I was once long ago. After several computer-crashes and main-board formations I lost my 'fanfic'-folder somewhere along the way and with it the ideas I had for _"What we are"_ I've however already copied the whole thing I've already posted and am starting to work on it again, I don't know however how fast I'm gonna work. I'm at a university now and got other priorities, so we'll see won't we?

On a lighter note I've got something for you as a little "comeback" kinda thing. Although I'd stopped writing for a whole damn long amount of time, I've never stopped reading fanfics. And recently I've been captured by the HP universe. It just kinda got my muse working once again and I sat down and wrote this little piece of something.

I don't know where I would go with this story although I've got several ideas floating through my head at the time. So you could say this work is ginda like a one-shot which could become the prolog for a longer story.

As there is not a real plan for where this could go there isn't really a summery. So just let yourself be surprised by what happens next. At the end I'm gonna say somethings concerning that whole mess down there.

Disclaimer: I don't owe... a whole damn lot of things...like a own car...yet... or... a pink muffin-machine...I do however own the right to tell you all that I own Harry Potter...and getting my ass sued so much that even my grant children of the 20th generation will have to pay of the debts I would make like that... and because of that I own the right to tell you the truth, seeing as I don't own the Harry Potter Universe and its characters and places.

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Looking around he finally spotted what he had been waiting for. He sat on the rock that he had deemed his last place on earth. He had been sitting there for years, which where like seconds to him, waiting for the being which now, finally, after all this time approached him. Standing up Harry James Potter-Black, a name long since forgotten by every mortal being and lost to most immortal once, came face to face with someone clad completely in black, it's face a handsome skeleton.

„What took you so long? I've been sitting here for decades. Not eating, drinking, sleeping or doing anything that would keep me alive besides breathing, and even that I stopped several weeks at times. So how comes Death is only now coming for me?" Harry asked, not with anger or resentment, but out of curiosity.

"You misunderstand my boy, I'm not here for you...I'm here to claim what's mine!" Death said with impassivity.

Harry narrowed his eyes at that. "Your wand, your stone and your cloak. The Three Deathly Hollows. Tell me, my friend, why should I give up those things if you don't even honor me with what I've wished for for so long. 413537 years, 7 months, 24 days, 17 hours and 12 seconds ago I should have died after I defeated Voldemort. Together with my wife I should have been buried. But I was denied by you. You gave me the quest to keep the world balanced. And I did just that. At times when the darkness was just about to consume everything I stepped in and saved the world, only to lead it to a new abyss when the time of peace and good threatened to take away all which is bad. I kept the world from destroying itself and destroyed it myself so that it reset itself, born from its ashes like the first and the last Phoenix."

"I've beaten Dark Lords and Saviors of the Light just like I've served them. I've destroyed demons and built gods. I've found Atlantis and drowned it again several times just as I've built and knocked down Avalon. All so that your plan could be kept in order. But tell me, when is my time finally coming? When do I get the rest that I beseech? When do I finally get to see all those I've loved and lost? When can I finally go with you? I'm tired of my life, more so then anyone has ever been, my friend. And here in my hand I have the tools you gave mankind, tools said to control 'death'. So tell me, why shouldn't I use them, for their propose, and tell you to take me?" Harry asked

"Because, my boy, there is one last thing you have to do, one last fight you have to win... one last life you have to save." Death told him with an even voice.

"So your plan is once again threatened to be disturbed?" Harry asked with amusement. "Then tell me, dear old friend of mine, what do I have to do, whom do I have to save, where do I have to go?" he asked eagerly, after all this time he would be able to come to rest...even if he would never be able to completely rest. HE had seen to it, that there would always be a part missing.

Smirking Death moved around Harry. "As I said, you have to save a life. Someone you know actually..." At this Harrys eyebrows rose. He had sat on this rock for more than half a century, and before that he hadn't had contact with living beings for twice as long. There was no one alive he knew anymore. At least no one that could die. Fawks had been a faithful friend of him through all this time.

"Do you know why I choose you to uphold my plan?" Death asked seeing the slightly confused look on the man in front of him. As Harry shook his head Death continued. "Because you witnessed the only disturbance of my plan to ever occur." At this Harry looked shocked. That wasn't possible. He had been told that the plan had to be upheld no matter what, because only than balance could be maintained. And without balance there would be nothing but chaos, and everything would cease to be.

"Yes my boy, my plan has been disturbed, and your mission is, to prevent that from happening. You asked me where you'd have to go. Well the correct question would have been 'When?'. " Death said still smirking. "And as to who you're going to help... there is only one person you know of, who vanished from existence, isn't there Harry?"

Harry looked at him with unbelieving eyes. "You send me back in time to save...her?"

"413537 years. Enough time gone and things done to balance the things which have not yet happened don't you think?" Death asked.

"So you're telling me that you'll come for me after I've done this?" Harry asked, wishing, craving even the release and the chance he was offered.

"The next 'time' we see each other, I'll take you home my friend." Death whispered with the slightest amount of sympathy. Before him stood a man, broken by time, lost in life, searching for death, who'd earned his respect. He himself had taken everything from him, never giving something in return. That's the way he was. That's the way it had to be.

Even now, as it seemed he would reward the one in front of him, he didn't do it because he wanted to do something for Harry, but because it had to be done. Nothing more, nothing less. No great reward for being the savior, no thank you for sacrificing himself. And Harry knew all of that, knew that this wasn't for his sake, but for selfish purposes of the being standing in front of him. And still Harry would do it, take on this challenge, throw himself away once again, one more time he would destroy himself, and if he had to he would walk all of those .812 seconds of his quest all over again. That's the way he was. That's the way it had to be.

And because he was willing to do all of that, Death would grant him his two utmost desires. Saving her...and dieing. Because only like that the balance could be maintained. Because that's the way it was. Because that's the only way it could be.

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Well that's it.

Now here are some things I'd like to say concerning this piece of mine:

First of all as I said I don't know whether this is just gonna be a one-shot or a longer story. I'll leave the decision up to you. Simply say so in the Reviews if you want me to continue, and I'll sit down and go to work on this.

Next is IF you want to know whether or not it would be worth to continue, here are some of the facts that I would work with in this fic.

This fic would be a Time-Travel, as most of you already guessed correctly. Now I won't send a 413537 and some year old Harry with all of his knowledge back in time to wink at Voldemort and damn him to all eternity. There will be a little twist and in the end it won't be a Time-Travel-Fic at all... at least if you ignore the first two or three chapters and some minor details...

Everything else depends on whether or not I'll write on.

Now if you want me to write one I'll have to make one thing perfectly clear, if anything I'm only a hobby-writer, I'll write when I've the time and the inclination to do so. And I'll do so with my other work (_What we are_), too.

sayonara


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